


Each Mistake That We Make

by sibley (ferns)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Background Relationships, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Miscommunication, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Requited Love, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 06:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15527805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Cisco needs a date to an event hosted by Bruce Wayne, of all people, and asks Barry to come as his totally platonic best friend. Who he's maybe been fantasizing about for years. Barry promises to come, as his totally platonic best friend. Who has maybe been talking to his wife about approaching Cisco with a certain kind of proposal.It's a recipe for disaster. Or at least embarrassment.





	Each Mistake That We Make

**Author's Note:**

> Once I started writing this, I literally couldn't stop. It's a lot different from anything I've written before, I think, but it's up to you to judge how well it turned out.

“Date me,” Cisco says, rolling over onto his back and folding his hands over his stomach with a little groaning sound.

Barry looks up at him from his book on theoretical physics that he seems to be trying to read at a normal human pace, decidedly confused. “What?”

“I need a date. For a thing. Please pretend to date me so I won’t have to go alone.” Cisco keeps looking up at the STAR Labs ceiling and hoping that Barry won’t notice how flushed his cheeks are.

“Uh, no.” Barry goes right back to his book and Cisco sits up. “Before you can start begging, remember that we’re friends with a handful of single people so you can just ask them, not your very happily married best friend.” Barry waves his hand so the light shines off his wedding ring. “So no.”

“Come on, please? Obviously you should get Iris’s go-ahead, but it’ll be totally platonic dating, not anything for real. And in case you’ve forgotten, Ralph and Wally aren’t single anymore and Caitlin’s been hanging out with that guy who works at Palmer Tech-Ryan, right?-so you and Iris are basically the only people I _can_ ask, because you’re my best friends.” Cisco scoots a little closer to Barry. “Look, if you don’t feel comfortable, that’s fine, but can you pass the word along to Iris? I really _do_ need a date.”

Barry sighs loudly and Cisco smiles hopefully at him. Maybe if he bats his eyelashes a few times… Barry’s even weaker to that than he is to cold. It’s Cisco’s secret weapon of last resort. “What’s the event? This isn’t me saying yes. This is me… Considering my options and what to tell Iris.”

“Well, it’s… An event,” Cisco winces. “It’s… Kind of hosted by Bruce Wayne. _The_ Bruce Wayne. Which means it’s in Gotham. I’m not super sure what the deal is, I just know he invited a lot of people who make stuff that could be of interest to him, so like Ted Kord, and Ray, and whoever’s running Stagg Industries these days. Sue told me about it, she said she put in a good word for me since I’m _basically_ the only one active here at STAR Labs.”

“And you need a date to that why, exactly?” Cisco can’t see Barry rolling his eyes behind the pages of his book, but he didn’t need to see it to know he was doing it. “It sounds like you’ll be fine going as a bachelor. Hell, you might even meet someone you like there. And if you don’t, Ray probably doesn’t have a date to it, you two can just hang out all night.”

“Ray and Felicity are going as business partners, I’m pretty sure,” Cisco corrects. “Wayne invited them both and they decided to go together. I asked them about it already. And I have a plus one, and according to Sue it’s gonna be more like a fancy party than a symposium or anything like that, and-look, I get why you wouldn’t want to come with me, I totally understand how that could cause some weird tension between you and Iris or you and me, and that's fine, but _please_ just recommend someone.”

“...I’ll talk it over with Iris,” Barry concedes, and Cisco whoops loudly and punches a fist in the air. “I can’t guarantee we’ll think of someone, though. You might just have to end up going alone. It wouldn’t be that bad. Promise.”

“Says you,” Cisco mutters. He didn’t care about having a real date, he just cared about… Well… Having someone _there._ It was an anxiety thing. Sure, he knew Ray, and he knew Felicity, and he’d probably know about a good handful of other people there, but it wouldn’t be the same as having someone with an excuse to stick next to all night so they could talk and make sure Cisco didn’t embarrass himself in front of a bunch of rich people with big dreams. But that was too shameful to admit out loud. Especially to Barry.

Barry pats his shoulder and sets his book down with a sigh when the alarms start going. “Dammit.” He’s across the room before Cisco even has a chance to blink. “There’s a situation downtown. Low level meta, you don’t have to get involved, I can take care of it before anyone else even hears about it.” He and his suit are gone in a shower of sparks, and Cisco hears him call over his shoulder, “I promise Iris and I will brainstorm stuff later!”

Cisco sighs and rests his chin on his hands as the alarm shuts off. Great. This was going just great.

* * *

“Who do we know who could date Cisco?” Barry says, staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom. He hears the comforter rustle as Iris shifts onto her side and props her head up with one hand. “He says he wants someone to be his plus-one to this event hosted by Bruce Wayne that he was invited to. He asked if I wanted to go, like-like _pretend_ to date, but…”

“Oh. I don’t think we know any more single people. Or people willing to pretend to be dating him who aren’t actually single.” Iris frowns and thinks it over. “Ja-no, he’s got that arrangement with Wally and Linda, doesn’t he? Not a Rogue, definitely not… Jesse’s too young but she’d probably like to come, that sounds like it’d be up her alley…”

They bounce ideas back and forth for a little while, shooting down everything they can come up with, and they try everyone from Rip Hunter to John Diggle. Barry tries not to feel just a _little_ bit of jealousy every time one of them suggests someone, and tries not to search just a _little_ too hard for reasons someone can’t go to the Wayne event with Cisco.

Barry figures it’s just normal overprotectiveness toward a friend trying to find a date. Even a fake one. Of course he wanted to help Cisco out. That’s what friends _did._ That’s what he and Iris were currently trying to do. Yeah. That was it.

By the time Barry pulls out his computer to start typing up the names they’ve already suggested so that they won’t repeat anyone, Iris calls him on his shit. “Barry, you’re trying too hard. What was wrong with asking if Winn could hop over for a night from Earth-38? Because I _know_ ‘he does stuff at night, Kara told me’ wasn’t a real reason.”

“I just wanna make sure they don’t flake out on him at the last minute,” Barry objects. “And he’s my best friend, so I need to make sure it’s someone we can trust. And-”

“Barry. It’s one night. _One_ potentially fake date. It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be the perfect match, as long as they have fun and Cisco impresses Wayne with whatever it is he’s going to do to impress him.” The corner of Iris’s mouth twitches up. “I’m starting to think you just don’t want anyone but _you_ to go to the party with him.”

Barry pictures that. Him being Cisco’s plus-one and watching him impress all the millionaires gathered there doing… Whatever it was that they did with how smart he was. It’d be nice. He’d like to see Cisco surpass their expectations. Then he replaced himself in the fantasy with Iris, and imagined her elbowing Cisco lightly and pointing to where Kord and his trophy husband were standing and making Cisco laugh-“You could go too. Either of us. We’re his best friends, it feels… Weird for one of us not to be there. This is a big thing!”

“Barry. I want you to be honest with me.” Iris sounds serious, so Barry stop typing out the name _John Constantine_ under the ‘already suggested’ category and looks at her. “Are you absolutely sure that you aren’t just being like this because you have, well, it sounds middle school, but because you have had a crush on him since you met him?”

Barry stares at her, and Iris waits patiently for a whole entire minute before her husband’s brain catches up with the situation. She thought it wouldn’t take nearly as long, him being a speedster and all, but maybe if he were a normal person he would’ve been shut down for twice as long. Who knows.

“I don’t have a _crush_ on Cisco,” Barry finally splutters out, just like Iris knew he would, because she knows him better than anyone. “I don’t-what are you _talking_ about, I love _you,_ I’m _married_ to you, I certainly don’t-I-” He waves his hands around at superspeed. It sounds like there’s a wasp trapped in the bedroom with them. “I don’t know why you think-” When he sees how she’s looking at him, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised, he deflates. “...How did you figure it out?”

He sounds broken. Iris takes pity on him. “Oh, baby, subtlety just… Isn’t your strong suit. It’s okay. _Cisco_ definitely doesn’t know, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She crawls forward on her knees and gently takes his hand. “And I’ve known since long before we were married, Barry. I’m not worried about you cheating on me with your best friend, if you think I am. I’ve just known you for a long time. If you _didn’t_ have a little bit of non-platonic love for him, I’d be concerned. He’s exactly your type when it comes to guys, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Iris sees him flush in the dim lighting as he looks away. “Yeah. I kinda have. He’s wonderful, isn’t he?” His gaze snaps back to her, eyes wide with guilt. Iris is a little worried that he’s about to start crying, and right as she’s done thinking that, she notices the tears as his voice cracks. “God, what the fuck is wrong with me?”

“Barry, it’s okay-” She starts, reaching her other hand to cup his face and pull him in close, but he’s already speeding backwards and jumping to his feet, pacing back and forth beside their bed in his bright red socks and blue boxers.

“It’s not okay! You can’t honestly be trying to tell me that you’re _just fine_ with your husband also being in love with another person!” Barry presses his knuckles into the back of his neck, breathing loud and frantic, and Iris crawls across the blankets so that she can sit in front of him. She thinks for a minute or so.

“If it were someone else,” she says slowly. “If it were someone else, I’d mind. But… It’s not someone else. It’s _Cisco.”_ Safe, dependable, solid Cisco. A superhero. Their best friend. The guy who helped Barry while he was still in a coma. The guy who always said hi to her cheerfully when he came to Jitters, who gave her ‘anonymous’ tips she could use when she was still with the Picture News. Hell, sometimes Iris thinks that _she_ might be in love with him… And maybe she is. Which is a whole other can of worms.

“It’s Cisco,” Barry agrees softly. They look at each other for a moment, and then Barry’s shoulders droop. He suddenly looks tiny. He’s way taller than Iris is, and he has been for years, but right now he looks as small as he did back in fifth grade.

Iris pulls him toward her and kisses his nose. “I think you should go with him to the event. Tell him you’re not going to pretend to date him, you’re just gonna go with him as a friend. He was probably expecting you to say that if you said yes to going there with him, anyway. It’ll be fine, Barry. And afterward… I think we should talk to him. About how you and I feel toward him.”

“Yeah,” Barry breathes, and bows his head so that their foreheads are touching. Iris can feel him trembling ever so slightly. “I think we should.”

* * *

“You’ll come with me?” Cisco grins and throws his arms around Barry’s waist before jumping back fast. Barry’s stomach feels like it’s doing backflips. “That’s awesome! I got some more detail, it’s… Pretty formal, I think, so if you’ve got a nice suit, wear that, and-dude, I’m so happy you’re coming, I thought I was gonna be standing in the corner and people were gonna have to force themselves to interact with me the whole time.”

“Ah, yeah, Iris said it would be a good idea for me to come. Just as your friend. Science partner, you know?” Barry tries for a smile that falls flat. Fortunately, Cisco’s already got his back to him so he doesn’t notice, chattering eagerly.

“Of course. I’m not expecting you to pretend to be my boyfriend or anything, don’t worry. It’s not like they’re gonna force us to kiss at the door or they won’t let us in.” Cisco smiles over his shoulder at Barry, that wide, easy smile that makes Barry’s chest light up like there are fireworks going off inside of it. “Seriously, thank you. I don’t know how I would’ve managed it alone. I probably would’ve thrown up all over Wayne. Maybe I still will. I’ve been too anxious to vibe it.”

Barry wants to tell him that Cisco’s one of the two most amazing people he’s ever met. Of _course_ he could do this without Barry. They both know Cisco’s the one who’s gonna do great things in his secret identity as well as his heroic one. Barry will be the director of the CCPD crime lab one day, and that suits him. That’s something he’s comfortable with. He’s okay with that, something small that still lets him help people in his civilian job.

But he’s seen Cisco’s blueprints. Totally new designs for prosthetic hands and legs, wheelchairs that are more streamlined and comfortable that can _hover,_ houses that run entirely on their own sustainable energy grid, cars that run on solar power, and of course there’s everything he made solely for superheroics-friction proof shoes you can break the sound barrier in, Cisco’s own vibe goggles, painless power dampeners… Cisco’s going to change the world one day. Hell, he already _has._

Cisco doesn’t need someone like Barry to give him courage. It’s the other way around. Iris grounds him. Iris connects him back to Earth and brings him back when he goes too far, when he loses himself. Cisco pulls him in the other direction. Cisco keeps him from doing too little, like he would if he were left on his own. It’s a nice balance.

Barry could say all of that to Cisco, who’s currently drawing up a rough sketch of something he _might_ be going to pitch to Wayne at the event if he gets the chance, something that already looks like a feat of technology, but he doesn’t. He just holds it in. Like he always does when it comes to Cisco.

He hopes Iris will be willing to help him pick out an outfit that doesn’t look like the byproduct of a chemical spill. According to her, his fashion sense is not nearly as good as he seems to think it is, which she’s been telling him since the night of their middle school dance.

Formal wear. Yeah. Cisco in formal wear. Barry _and_ Cisco in formal wear. Together. With Barry as Cisco’s plus-one to an event. That Cisco kind of required because of his anxiety. Yeah. This’ll go fine.

* * *

As soon as Barry’s foot touches down on the other side of Cisco’s breach, he registers that Cisco’s shoulders are shaking. The portal closes behind them, soft blue shimmering away easily, and Cisco starts pressing his knuckles together.

“Oh, god, Barry, I think I’m going to be sick,” he groans, digging his forehead into Barry’s shoulder. Barry tries to control his heartbeat as he squeezes his friend _(friend, friend, friend)_ closer. “Let’s just go home. This was a huge mistake. I don’t _do_ high society!”

“Yeah, but you can fake it,” Barry says firmly, steering Cisco closer to the gates of Wayne Manor. He feels some remorse for forcing Cisco to do this against his will, but they had a talk over the phone the night before-Cisco had insisted that no matter how many times he said he didn’t want to go through with it on the day of, he actually really _did_ want to go, and Barry should force him if necessary because this wasn’t actually something that he wanted to miss no matter how much his anxiety insisted otherwise.

Cisco gulps in a few deep breaths as he shows his ID to the guy outside the gate and tells him that Barry is his plus-one, gripping his hand for comfort in a way that makes Barry’s gut clench. “I can fake it. Right. Yeah. I can be Cisco Ramon, CEO of STAR Labs, coolest part time superhero around. Yeah. I can do that.”

Barry thinks about the advice that Iris gave him and squeezes Cisco’s hand a little bit tighter, careful not to hurt him. He knows Cisco’s so much stronger than he is in terms of power level, but there’s something about him that makes Barry want to be careful. Like how Iris makes him want to slow down and remember that he’s Barry Allen, not just the Flash. And if Iris hadn’t said that she was okay with… This, if it hadn’t been her who said that Barry could do it in the first place, he’d feel so ashamed for comparing Cisco and Iris in his head not once but _twice._ He can’t help it.

The party, since that is what it clearly is, like Cisco said it would be, is loud. Not too loud, at least not for Barry, but loud enough that it makes Cisco wince and it takes him a few minutes to get used to it. Ray is already there, talking to Kord, with Felicity having her wheelchair inspected (with permission, of course) by Kord’s husband. Ray stops talking to excitedly wave at Cisco, who waves back, and a pretty blonde woman bounces up to them to introduce herself as Danni Garrett before engaging Cisco in a whirlwind conversation that Barry can’t keep up with even at superspeed. At least Cisco is enjoying it.

Barry sticks by Cisco’s side for awhile, looking for anybody that he knows and seeing practically no one outside of the aforementioned Ray and Felicity. No wonder Cisco was so anxious. Barry’s been to plenty of events before, with the fanciness levels ranging from his own Bar Mitzvah to a princess’ coronation, although technically he’d been wearing the Flash outfit to that one, so it didn’t really count. This was something else, though. Bruce Wayne must have been really earnest about getting these people to pitch to him in a more, uh, interesting setting.

And speak of the devil-“Mr. Ramon?”

Cisco squeaks a little and spins around, grabbing onto Barry’s arm for balance when he comes face-to-face with Wayne himself, who not only towers over him but is wearing the darkest black suit either of them have ever seen and is watching Cisco with nothing but guarded curiosity. Cisco swallows thickly and it takes him a good fifteen seconds to speak. “I-um-yes. That’s me. I’m Mr. Ramon.” He smiles shakily and holds out the hand that isn’t gripping Barry like he’s a life preserver. “Nice to meet you.”

Wayne smiles a little, still weirdly stiff, and shakes Cisco’s hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Miss Dearbon spoke highly of you.” The corner of his mouth shifts into a genuinely fond smile. “Then she told me that I needed to seriously lighten up and dumped her drink on my head, and I honestly considered not inviting you because of that, but after I looked into your work… You’re an impressive man.”

Cisco beams. Barry’s stomach flutters. Cisco deserves this. God, Cisco _really_ deserves this. “Thank you! A lot! And I’m, um, I’m sorry she poured her drink on you? She didn’t mention that when she told me about this. I’m very glad you invited me anyway.”

“I am too.” With measured strength, Wayne claps Cisco on the shoulder. Barry didn’t think it was possible for Cisco’s smile to get any wider, but somehow it does. “I look forward to hearing what concepts you have for me later.”

Cisco’s smile doesn’t go away for the next fifteen minutes, even as they migrate over to where the food is. Barry makes sure to restrain himself, because he _really_ doesn’t want to start eating at superspeed despite how hungry he is, but Cisco eagerly talks to him about what he’s going to present to Wayne later despite the crumbs falling out of his mouth. It’s adorable.

And then someone neither of them were expecting to see shows up.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Someone says loudly from behind them, and at first neither Cisco nor Barry think they’re talking to them. Why would they be? This place is crowded, and they hardly know anyone there. But then-“Hey! Ramon! I’m talking to you!”

Cisco blinks at Barry and turns his head and finds himself nose to nose with Hartley Rathaway, of all people.

“Um,” Barry says, ready to start trying to diffuse the situation, but Cisco’s eyes are already flashing-literally. His eyes shine gold in a way that could be mistaken for a trick of the light by an outsider. By someone who didn’t know that meant Cisco’s powers were dangerously close to the surface.

“I was _invited,_ Hartley,” Cisco hisses as he crosses his arms. Barry glances around fast, worried that Hartley is going to cause a scene and get one or both of them kicked out. “Which means I have just as much of a right to be here as you do.”

Hartley gives Cisco a once-over, and then to Cisco’s shock, nods stiffly in his direction. “I… Very much believe that. You always were smart, Ramon. A cut above the rest, even back when we were both working on the particle accelerator. I just didn’t think anybody had heard of you.” His gaze jumps to Barry and Barry swallows. He knows it’s too much to hope for that Hartley won’t recognize him as _that_ Barry Allen. The one that’s the Flash. And clearly he does, but instead he says, “So, you’re dating the Flash?”

Cisco’s cheeks go hot as Barry’s entire face turns bright red. “Hartley, shut _up!”_ Cisco gets out, very lightly smacking at his arm. Hartley looks down at were Cisco’s hand made contact, seemingly confused that _anyone_ would touch him like that, before looking back at Cisco, something behind his eyes making Barry’s stomach tie itself into knots. “There are tons of people around! You can’t just say that! Jesus Christ, man, you’re gonna give both of us heart attacks. And then were will Central City be, huh?”

Hartley smiles a little. It looks kind of wrong on his face. “Sorry. Last I heard you were with that woman, the one who ended up on the”-he lowers his voice, thankfully, because Cisco doesn’t know _how_ they’d be able to explain this one if anybody not in the know (the same know which Hartley definitely should not have been in) overheard it-“time machine.”

“Okay, how the hell do _you_ know that?” Cisco demands at a whisper. He plants his hands on his hips. “Don’t tell me you’ve been spying on us. Again. It was weird and creepy the first time you did it, and it’s even weirder and creepier now.”

Barry feels a little out of place and grabs some more fruit to keep him occupied. Hartley doesn’t seem to be an immediate threat. Or even a threat at all, outside of to Barry’s secret identity. Outside of his original hostility, he doesn’t seem to be trying to get either of them involved in a fight. Which, Barry supposes, is a good thing. They don’t need a fight right now. At Bruce frickin’ Wayne’s fancy inventor party.

Hartley flushes. “I have my ways. I wasn’t _spying._ I just have… An inside source, you could say. I know some of the other people up there on that ship. _Very_ well. And no, Cisco. I don’t mean the Rogues. That’s disgusting. They’re both twenty years older than me at best.”

Barry’s not there when he hears Cisco’s discovery that Hartley’s ‘inside source’ into their activities is _Wally,_ or at least he doesn’t hear it, because he’s too busy discovering that the shrimp is _delicious_ (what? He’s not _that_ religious. For shrimp this good, he’s certainly not going to regret breaking kosher), but his shoulders relax when Cisco laughs disbelievingly anyway. Maybe despite Hartley’s sudden arrival, this will actually go fine.

Which is when a kid of about thirteen with brown skin and curly black hair in a nice violet shirt and black pants bounces over to Cisco out of nowhere to pull on his sleeve.

“My dad wants to see you now,” he says, shrugging his shoulders and elaborating when Cisco blinks uncomprehendingly at him, “My dad is Bruce Wayne. He gave me special permission to be the one to get you, not that I really need it. Come on.”

Hartley and Barry watch Cisco follow the kid away, and Barry flashes him a quick smile and gets a nervous thumbs up in return. Barry had thought that he’d be allowed to go back and give Cisco moral support, and he’s pretty sure Cisco had been assuming the same thing, but evidently they were both wrong. They’re probably only both supposed to go back when they’re truly business partners, like Felicity and Ray.

“So,” Barry says, trying to break the awkward silence that’s wedged itself between him and Hartley now that Cisco is gone and secretly hoping that Hartley will decide to walk away and pester someone else now that there’s nobody here for him to talk to who will actually slightly put up with him, “are you here with anyone? Date, business partner, criminal associate…”

Hartley turns slightly pink. “He chose to wait on the other side of the room. I, ah, told him to wait over there.” He doesn’t provide any more detail, but he does pat Barry on the shoulder a little harsher than he needs to. “I know this is rich, coming from me, but if you break Ramon’s heart, I’ll make sure you never run again, got it?”

“What?” By the time Barry turns around, Hartley’s gone, slipped into the crowd of people around the tables where the food is. Does Hartley actually think Barry and Cisco are dating? Surely he doesn’t, he was invited to Barry and Iris’s wedding. Wasn’t he? Didn’t Wally say that he was going to invite him…? He’s got to be joking, then. No way he thinks Barry is actually Cisco’s boyfriend. Didn’t they correct him when he just thought so, anyway? Barry doesn’t remember doing it, but surely Cisco must have… Right?

Barry tries to mingle while Cisco’s gone, getting to actually say hi to Felicity and Ray and getting pulled into a long talk with them before that Garrett woman shows up again to talk to Felicity and Barry is able to make his exit from the conversation. He’s getting a little anxious-he’s not entirely sure how long Cisco’s been gone, but it must be over twenty minutes by now, and that probably means something is wrong, right? Unless a long meeting is actually a really good thing and it means that Wayne is interested in what Cisco’s telling him about?

“You look just as bored as I feel,” someone unfamiliar remarks, and Barry snaps back to reality from where he was staring off into space and finds himself standing beside a pretty woman with blonde hair down to her shoulders wearing a lovely green dress. She holds out her hand like she wants Barry to shake it, which he does. “I’m Sapphire, Sapphire Stagg.”

“Barry Allen.” She lets go of his hand. “You’re the new CEO of Stagg Industries, right?” Barry remembers Simon Stagg. Remembers what he’d done to Danton Black. How he’d disappeared almost immediately following that incident. Hopefully she’s less ruthless than her father. “I heard you’d be here.”

Sapphire smiles and nods. “Yes, I am. I’m sorry, I can’t place _your_ name… It sounds familiar, but I can’t think of where I know you from…”

Barry winces. She’s probably remembering the news coverage from his trial. “Uh, well-just sounds like some other common names, I guess. I’m here with my, uh, partner, Cisco Ramon? He’s back there talking with Mr. Wayne right now, so if you wanna wait with me so you can talk to him when he’s done-”

“Actually, I was hoping for a dance with you,” Sapphire says, nudging him with her elbow. “I didn’t even know this party would _have_ dancing, and even though it doesn’t look that interesting, I figured I’d find someone to make this place more bearable while I wait for Mr. Wayne to stoop to talk to me.”

“Oh, um-I’m sure that would be fun, but I’m-I’m married?” Barry says it like a question, flashing his ring at her. Iris doesn’t mind him being with Cisco. She’ll definitely mind this, if Sapphire takes it to be more than a dance, and to be honest Barry’s a little uncomfortable with it simply _being_ an innocent dance. He doesn’t like the idea of it. “I can dance with you, but if you’re expecting anything else to happen, I don’t really think it would be, um, appropriate for me not to tell you?”

“You mentioned,” she says, and Barry blinks, because he’s _pretty_ sure he didn’t mention Iris or his marriage? Maybe she overheard something earlier on? Barry doesn’t remember talking about Iris, though, so-“And I’m married too. My husband has a, er, rare skin condition that prevents him from attending events like this one. But I figured we’ve both got no one to talk to and the floor looks pretty empty, so why not?”

Right when Barry’s about to apologetically tell her that she seems nice, but he’s not really comfortable with it even though it’s a totally innocent dance and they’re both happily married people, someone latches onto his arm in a side hug, laughing loudly into his shoulder. _Cisco._

“He-Mr. Wayne-I mean _Bruce”-_ Barry looks at where Wayne himself is standing a few feet away, watching Cisco with a great deal of amusement-“thought it was great, he said his people hadn’t even thought of using magnetism for that before, and then he-I mean _you-_ thought the prosthetic blueprints were great too, so thanks for convincing me to bring them-” Cisco’s smile is so big and his eyes are so bright and happy it makes Barry’s whole body feel like it’s on fire.

Sapphire laughs as Wayne gestures for her to follow him. “I’ll be right there. You’re the husband, Cisco, right?” Barry’s heart stops beating in his chest and starts pounding in his throat instead, far too loudly for comfort. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Sapphire Stagg.”

“Yep, that’s me! Nice to meet you too!” Cisco chirps before his brain can catch up with what he’s saying, still clearly on cloud nine. Once he registers what she said, though, he turns the brightest red Barry has ever seen him go, and starts to correct her, but she’s already following Wayne back in the direction that Cisco just came from. Slowly, Cisco turns to look at Barry, eyes huge. “Did you tell her we were _married?!”_

“No!” Barry says fast. Too fast, evidently, since it comes out like a strangled squeak instead. He tries again. “No, I swear, I don’t know how-” He stops, mind racing a mile a minute. “Oh my god, I-I called you my partner, like _science_ partner, and then I showed her my ring and said I was married when she asked me to dance to kill some time, so she must have assumed that when I said I was married I meant that I was married to _you.”_

“...Oh,” Cisco breathes, biting his lower lip. There’s something weird in his voice. “Shit, dude-should we chase her down and explain? I’d feel awful if someone heard about this and thought that you were cheating on Iris, or something, do you think we should try to follow her and explain? Bruce is probably taking her to the same room I presented in, and I know where that is, so if you wanna track her down I can give you directions or something.”

Barry takes a deep breath. His head is starting to pound and his chest feels like it’s being squeezed. It’s suddenly far too hot in the room, and he feels like his clothes are sticking to his skin and rubbing in all the wrong ways. _You’re the husband, Cisco, right?_ “Actually, I think what I really need is some fresh air.”

“I’ll come with you,” Cisco says quickly, grabbing Barry’s elbow and carefully steering him around some people toward an open side door. It’s quieter outside, no music and only the faintest strains of people loudly conversing, since it was fairly chilly out and almost nobody (including Barry and Cisco) had brought jackets.

Barry closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, tilting his head back. He doesn’t get cold as easily as he once did, so even though he can feel the chill it doesn’t bother him, but it only takes him thirty seconds to realize that beside him, Cisco is shivering, hugging himself for the warmth that a suit can’t provide all on its own. Before he even really knows what he’s doing, Barry finds himself opening his arms like he’s expecting a hug.

“Come here,” he says, when Cisco doesn’t look at him. “I’ll keep you warm.” Cisco blinks and slowly steps sideways, relaxing some when Barry wraps his arms around him and letting out a soft sigh. “Better?”

“Much. I should bring you with me everywhere this winter, you’re like a space heater,” Cisco hums, pressing the side of his head against Barry’s chest. There’s still some tension in his shoulders, like he’s ready to step away from Barry at a moment’s notice, and it makes things feel… Awkward. It’s not like they haven’t done this before. Cisco uses the space heater line every time Barry hugs him to warm him up. They’re both tactile people, Cisco more so than Barry, and they’ve been touchy with each other ever since they met. It’s not new.

“You say that every time,” Barry reminds him, squeezing a little tighter. Maybe Cisco just feels awkward because Sapphire thought they were married to each other. _Barry_ feels awkward because Sapphire thought they were married, but-okay, it’s not exactly the first time they’ve been mistaken for a couple, and Cisco always laughed it off then, so…? Maybe it’s just different now because Barry is married to a woman he loves, and it’s not as easy to find it funny because of that.

God, Barry wishes Iris were here. Iris always seems to know how to straighten him out and help him make sense of things. Iris would know how to make things stop being awkward. Iris would know how to get Cisco to relax fully. Iris would know how to make this work.

Barry suddenly wonders-if Iris were here, instead of him, if she and Cisco were hugging to keep warm in the crisp night air, if she’d be looking down at Cisco’s face like he’s doing now, cataloguing every freckle and laugh line and the way his mouth is shaped and how soft his eyes are with their new beautiful silvery sheen that he’s had since he started using his powers and how perfect his nose is, if she’d be thinking about running her fingers along his jaw and curling them through his hair.

“Cisco?” Barry whispers, because suddenly it feels like they’re the only two people in the world. He can feel Cisco’s heartbeat as he shifts his arms so that while one of them is still wrapped around Cisco’s waist, his other hand is resting on the crook of where Cisco’s neck meets his shoulder, his thumb on Cisco’s collarbone. It’s fluttering and fast, and Barry can feel his own beating harshly in his mouth.

“Yeah?” Cisco licks his lips a little bit, eyes meeting Barry’s, and Barry can’t even hear the event next to them anymore because of how loudly his blood is pounding in his ears. He wishes Iris were there. He wishes Iris was holding the hand he isn’t now cupping Cisco’s face with, laughing into his neck as he slowly leans down and forward and-

Barry’s had dreams about kissing Cisco before, but his fantasies pale in comparison to the real thing. He tastes like his favorite brand of mint gum and he gasps a little into Barry’s mouth as he automatically wraps his arms around Barry’s waist tightly. Barry’s sure it only feels like forever to him because of how _everything_ feels like forever to someone with his powers, but it’s still too soon when he leans away and watches an actual, literal spark jumps between their lower lips.

“Um.” Cisco says quietly, blinking fast as he steps back away from Barry, biting the inside of his cheek and rubbing his palm with his thumb. Barry feels his stomach drop as he realizes that Cisco’s no longer meeting his eyes and is now looking anywhere _but_ at Barry, whether it’s at the paving around Wayne Manor or back inside to the event-party-thing or at the tree line behind the building. But not Barry. Oh. Shit. Oh no. “I-uh-I-”

“I’m sorry,” Barry gets out. It sounds strangled and wrong and far away to his ears. He fucked up. He totally, completely fucked this up. One hundred percent. He reaches out to-well, he doesn’t know what, he just knows he wants to take Cisco’s hands and make this up to him somehow, but then Cisco is stepping back away from him just a little bit too quickly, and Barry realizes that he has to go. He has to leave _now._ Before he can mess things up between them any further. “I’m-I’m so sorry, Cisco.”

And then he’s running, not entirely sure where he’s trying to go as long as it’s away from Cisco-and he can’t go back to Iris, can he? Is she going to be angry? He hopes she’s angry. She deserves to be angry. She said that they would talk this over with Cisco, but then he went and fucked things up for the both of them. For all three of them. But he also has to go tell Iris what happened, he has to explain things, he has to tell her everything, even if he doesn’t know how he’s going to do it.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, though, because he knows that he has to, and he can’t put it off because he needs Iris’s advice on how to fix things. And he needs that advice, like, right now. He needs her _help_ right now. And it’s also getting kind of hard to see where he’s going with all the tears that are currently in his eyes.

So he crashes through his own door and doesn’t bother to shut it behind him and throws himself facedown on their couch, maybe just a little bit _too_ dramatically, because now Iris is running out of their shared bedroom wielding the massive hardcover copy of _It_ that Wally got her for her birthday that she’s just now getting around to reading like it’s a weapon.

“Oh, thank _god-_ you scared the hell out of me, Barry,” she sighs, lowering her book/deadly weapon of defense. She massages her chest with her other hand, shaking her head some. “Why are you back so soon? I wasn’t expecting you for at least another hour…”

“I fucked up,” Barry says into the couch cushions, pushing himself up to to repeat himself when he realizes that he’s probably not in the best position for audible communication. “I fucked up, Iris. I kissed-I kissed Cisco.”

Iris takes a deep breath and sits down on the couch beside him. “I don’t think I’m mad at you,” she says finally. “But… I am upset. You just sprang that on him kind of out of nowhere, I assume, without mentioning that we were going to talk to him about it soon. Before we could do any negotiations or anything. And I’m guessing that you just left him there alone, huh?” Barry’s eyes went wide as he realized that yes, he had, and that meant he needed to go back and-“What’s done is done. Cisco can breach home. I think… We should give him some space tonight. We can-we _should_ talk to him tomorrow. As soon as we can.”

“Fuck,” Barry hisses, dropping his face back into the cushions a little too hard. His face heals from the impact almost before he can feel the sting, at least. “I need to make this up to him. I didn’t mean to-and then I ran off, so he probably thinks I’m mad, or he thinks I hate him, or he thinks I hate _you,_ or-I don’t know. Fuck!”

“Tomorrow,” Iris says firmly. She squeezes his upper arm. “We can’t spring this on him yet. He’s confused and we don’t want to confuse him more. I don’t think I need to tell you that you shouldn’t have kissed him, but…” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Come to bed, Barry. We’ll talk to Cisco tomorrow. _Both_ of us will talk to Cisco tomorrow.”

* * *

Cisco’s not there when they get to STAR Labs that afternoon. Wally says he was there in the morning but left, said that he had a family thing to take care of, and then Iris kisses his forehead and he pretends to be disgusted, and then the alarm goes off and Barry and Wally go take care of it, and then when they get back Cisco’s _still_ not there.

When asked, Wally says that he doesn’t know what the family thing is or how long it’ll take, but that Cisco specifically mentioned that he wouldn’t be at _home_ until late in the evening, so Wally would know not to look for him there if he ended up needing him for something. Iris texts him asking for a location and when he’ll get back to the Lab or back home, one or the other, but doesn’t get a reply, which makes Barry worried, because usually when one of their friends isn’t responding it’s because they’ve been kidnapped.

Iris says that it’s more likely that he’s just avoiding them, which makes Wally confused until Iris tells him, making up a fairly believable lie, that Barry and Cisco got in a small fight at the Wayne-hosted party-thing they went to the night before, and Barry feels awful about it now, but that Cisco’s probably trying to avoid him.

When she’s done halfway explaining, Wally winces and pats Barry on the back gingerly. “That’s really sucky, dude. Good luck patching things up, I guess, but you two are friends. Friends fight sometimes. It’ll be fine. You don’t need my luck.”

“I know,” Barry sighs, leaning back against one of the walls of the hallway that goes into the Cortex. He remembers Cisco’s heartbeat against the pad of his thumb and winces. “I know, but… Still. I’d rather make up with him sooner rather than later. He’s one of my best friends.”

“Of course you do.” Wally nudges him, then checks his phone when it chimes before swearing loudly. Iris gasps and swats at his arm. “Sorry, Iris-I gotta get to Linda, I’m late for our date-bye! See you guys later!” And then he’s gone, and Barry and Iris are alone in the hallway together.

Iris hugs him and kisses his cheek when she sees the expression on his face, and Barry pulls her closer. Tighter against his chest. “I’m worried I really messed everything up, Iris. I don’t know if we can fix this. He’s never… I mean, after Flashpoint he did, he avoided me and he blamed me and he had every right to do that, but I don’t think this is as bad as it was then? It can’t be, can it?”

“Well, we’re going to try,” Iris says softly. “Even if we can’t fix it.” She doesn’t say that if Barry had stayed there and apologized in person to Cisco and brought him back to the apartment right then to explain things or even tried to do it at the Manor, they wouldn’t be in this mess. She doesn’t say that they wouldn’t be here if Barry had never kissed Cisco, either. She knows that Barry already understands that. She doesn’t have to tell him. “He’s our best friend, Barry. For him, we can try to fix things.”

“Yeah.” Barry closes his eyes and bends his head to tuck his forehead against her neck. Her hair smells nice. God, he loves this woman. He feels like he’s going to start crying. It’s been a chaotic couple of days. He kissed Cisco, he made Cisco’s fun night end on a low note, he… He… “He’s our best friend. I-we love him, don’t we?”

“We do,” Iris promises, and then Barry kisses her, soft and sweet and slow, because how could he not? Every time it’s like the first time all over again. Vaguely, he’s aware he’s about to start crying, and that Iris is rubbing slow circles on his shoulder, and that he’s whispering something about how much he loves her, and she’s murmuring back that she knows, and for a moment it makes him feel like everything is going to be okay, because he’s got her by his side.

It’s not until much later that night, when Barry and Iris are both back at home demolishing about thirty cartons of mint chocolate chip ice cream and are just about halfway through the movie _Hairspray,_ that Iris’s phone chimes with the message from Cisco. Two words. _At home._ And then, just a few seconds later: _Come over._

Silently, Iris shows Barry, and she can hear it when his breathing catches even over the sound of the musical on the TV. He swallows thickly and it takes him a minute to speak, and when he does, his voice is shaky and unsure. “Do you think he means that he just wants you to come over? Or that he wants us both to come?”

“I think we both need to come, even if he just meant me,” Iris says softly. “We both need to be there to explain this to him. It can’t be either of us alone. He’s _our_ friend. We… You’re not the only one that loves him, Barry. I finally had some time to think about-about who he is to us. To _me._ And he’s not just our friend. My friend.”

Iris stands up, turning off the movie and gathering up the ice cream cartons to put back in the fridge or throw away, depending on whether or not she found anything salvageable in them. Barry tugs them out of her hands and does it at superspeed before she even has a chance to ask and stands in front of the door when he’s done, eyes comically wide.

“Wait, we’re going _now?”_ He squeaks out, and it would be adorable if he didn’t sound anxious enough to throw up all twenty nine of the cartons of mint chocolate chip ice cream he just ate. “Like right now? _Now_ now?”

“We said we’d do it today,” Iris says softly, taking her husband’s hand and rubbing her thumb over his wedding ring. “And him saying we- _I-_ should come over means that he’s ready to talk to us, which he hasn’t been all day. I wasn’t really expecting him to be ready until tomorrow, but I’m glad he is now. Our stomachs are full, we’ve had a good night-it’s the right time, Barry. You know that just as well as I do.”

“What if he hates me, Iris?” Barry asks softly. “I didn’t even mean to kiss him. I know that doesn’t make it _better,_ but I didn’t… I really meant to do what you said, to go as his friend and then bring it up with you later. The possibility of us being… Being… Something _else._ But then I just screwed it all up.” He falls silent. “I don’t want him to hate me. I don’t want him to hate _us.”_

“I don’t want him to hate us, either. But we’ll never know unless we go over there and talk to him,” Iris reminds him. She knows he knows she’s right. But she also knows her husband doesn’t always think rationally no matter how much he likes to believe that he does.

“You’re right,” he sighs. “You’re right, you’re always right, I just-I can’t stop thinking about-” Anxiety is bad enough on its own, but mix in a brain that can calculate things faster than the speed of sound and it only gets worse. “I don’t want him to hate us, but I don’t want him to feel like because I kissed him he has to get into something with us, but I _want_ him to be with us, I want him to _so_ bad, but I want it to be because _he_ wants it not because he thinks-I dunno-I don’t fucking _know,_ Iris!”

“That’s why we’re going over there. So that we’ll know.” Iris slides her arm around him and opens the door. She tries to ignore her _own_ worries as she does it. Sure, she’s not the one who kissed Cisco at a fancy party hosted by _Bruce Wayne_ and attended by geniuses, but he’s her best friend just like Barry is. And she wasn’t lying when she said that she’d thought seriously about how she wanted to alter their relationship.

Before, Iris had never really given much thought toward _her_ feelings about Cisco. Barry’s, yes, but not her own. He was just _Cisco._ Ever-present Cisco who went out and got drunk with her and slept at her place after Barry disappeared and Cisco who _brought him back,_ who _saved Barry from the speed force._ Cisco who made dumb jokes and laughed at hers and who pretended to be her boyfriend when she saw that one nasty ex boyfriend from college and who tried to cheer her up when she was down and…

He was _Cisco._ That’s all he ever needed to be, to her. So maybe she does love him more than she thought she did. Not in the same way that she thought she did. Maybe there’s a reason she doesn’t mind the dreams she knows Barry has about Cisco taking him apart. Not because she has had them too, but because she understands why, and knows she could. Just like she knows she could love him, one day. Just like she knows that she _does._

Barry picks her up, carefully, and she wraps her arms around his neck. She’ll let him break the ‘no superspeeding out of the loft’ rule just this once. Or for the fiftieth time, depending on how you count it. She closes her eyes and lets the speed force’s comforting bubble form around her, teasing at her hair as static electricity nibbles at her fingertips, and opens them when everything has settled.

Barry approaches Cisco’s doorknob like he’s worried it’s going to grow teeth and bite his hand off, so Iris reaches around him to knock solidly on the door twice. It opens almost before she can even finish the second knock, revealing a decidedly haggard looking Cisco whose eyes flicker fast from her to Barry before he opens the door all the way. “Come in.”

Cisco’s apartment looks like a mess, but considering it kind of always does Iris doesn’t see it as a reason to be concerned. Not yet, at least. The fatter of his two cats, Mochi, is sitting on his dining room table, white paws tucked neatly up under herself, and Barry reaches out to pat her ears only to yank his hand back when she hisses at him. She’s always been nice before… He wonders if she just smells something on his hands, but…

Cisco leans back against his fridge, awkwardly trying to stuff his hands into pockets that he doesn’t actually have. He looks like he’s going to start crying, and Iris automatically reaches out to comfort him. He moves before she can make contact, though, and braces his elbows against Mochi’s table instead, tugging at his hair before folding his hands over the back of his neck.

He looks at Iris with wide, wet eyes. “I’m… I don’t know how to say this, Iris, other than to say that I’m so, _so_ sorry.” Cisco swallows audibly. “I really am. I know you probably don’t believe me, and you have every right not to, I guess, but-I swear. I’m _so_ sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Iris asks, sitting down next to him. Barry moves to sit down on his other side, only to switch and sit beside Iris instead when Cisco visibly flinches away from him. When Cisco doesn’t respond, just looks at Barry guiltily and bites his lip, she closes her eyes. “I see. You’re sorry for kissing my husband?”

Cisco doesn’t say anything, but the faint hiss as he sucks breath in quickly through his teeth is enough of an answer. Barry immediately starts to protest. “But I was the one who kissed _you!”_ He exclaims. _“You_ didn’t do anything wrong, _I_ was the one who messed up! Not you!”

Cisco looks at him a little disbelievingly. Iris wonders how this must seem to him. His married best friend saying loudly in front of his wife that he kissed someone else and trying to take responsibility for it so that he won’t feel bad anymore. Maybe he’d be expecting this if just Barry were there, but clearly this is throwing his apology to Iris somewhat off the rails. She takes a deep breath. “Cisco? Do you know why Barry kissed you?”

“I have no idea,” he says honestly. He unfolds his hands and starts curling them through his hair. Grounding and soothing. “I didn’t even know you _knew_ about it, I thought I was going to be able to explain that-that it just all happened so _fast,_ I didn’t even mean to do it, and…” Cisco buries his face in his hands. “I didn’t even mean to _like_ it.”

“He kissed you because he made a mistake-” Iris holds up her hand to stop Cisco from interrupting. She doesn’t need superpowers to know that he’s about to start claiming _he_ was the one who made the mistake, not Barry. “Because he made a mistake, and because he loves you. Those aren’t the same thing.” How could _anyone_ think it was a mistake to love Cisco Ramon?

“You love me?” Cisco looks at Barry, who immediately turns cherry red and looks in the other direction. And then Cisco’s eyes shift over to Iris, brows furrowed in confusion. “And you… Knew that he was in love with me?”

“I think I might have known for longer than Barry has,” Iris says dryly, shaking her head. “He’s not exactly an expert on being subtle, our Barry. And I’m not mad at him. Or at you. I’m not very happy that he kissed you _before_ we could have this talk, that’s true, but I’m not mad at him for loving you at all.”

“Why not?” Cisco whispers. The words get stuck in his throat and he has to force them out, which makes his voice crack partway through. “He’s your _husband._ Why aren’t you mad at him? Why aren’t you mad at _me?_ Don’t you hate me? _Shouldn’t_ you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” Iris says gently. So, so softly. “I love you.”

Nobody says anything except for Mochi, who stretches and yawns and then jumps onto the floor, padding off to find her sister accompanied by the sound of her little bell. Cisco’s blinking at her, apparently stunned into speechlessness, while Barry squeezes her hand tight enough for it to hurt on her other side. Finally, after a few minutes of struggling to find something (anything) to say, Cisco regains the power of speech. “What?”

“We love you,” Barry says simply. He loosens his grip on Iris’s fingers, much to her relief. “We were going to tell you. After the Wayne thing was over. We didn’t really have a set plan, we kinda just decided it on the fly, but we knew that we were going to tell you, and _I_ knew that I was supposed to go with you just as a friend, and then I just screwed everything up by kissing you, and then ruined it _even more_ by running away afterward.”

“We don’t expect you to feel pressured into, well, into entering a relationship with us,” Iris says quickly. There’s been enough misunderstandings these past couple of days, that’s for sure. Especially since that one has the potential to be genuinely dangerous. “We just both care very strongly about you. And we wanted to be honest with you and finally tell you. Especially after Barry kissed you.”

“...So what exactly are you proposing here?” Cisco asks cautiously. He’s starting to relax, and he doesn’t look like he’s about to start crying anymore, which is a good thing for sure. He’s also doing that thing he does when he’s thinking where he traces his fingers in patterns onto the nearest flat surface-in this case, this tabletop.

“If you want to, you could join our relationship. Kind of. Not immediately.” Iris looks at Barry. “There would be an adjustment period, of course. We wouldn’t expect you to start going out with us publicly immediately or ever, for example. Same with stuff like sex. It’s hard to take things slowly when a speedster is involved, but we’d still go slow, wouldn’t we, Barry?”

“Of course we would. It’s like Iris said,” Barry says softly, fighting the urge to reach around his wife and squeeze Cisco’s hand, “we don’t want you to feel pressured into anything. The offer is just… On the table. You know? In case you decide you want to take it. But you don’t have to.”

Of course they both want him to. Badly. Barry more than Iris, perhaps, because Barry’s known about his own feelings for Cisco just as Iris has for longer than she’s known about her own. Barry’s been fantasizing about a relationship with Cisco for a long time. Iris has just begun to realize that she even _can._ But it’s Cisco. Their friend Cisco. When it comes down to it, even if they haven’t said it out loud, in the end they’re both more worried about losing him permanently as a friend than whether or not he’ll say yes to their offer.

Cisco keeps tracing his fingers, repeating the same patterns over and over and over again. Spirals and rhombuses and triangles and circles in a pattern. “What would the two of you say,” he starts in a low voice, “if I told you that ever since Barry got lost in the speed force for the first time, I’ve been thinking about both of you?” He licks his lips a little. “Separately, at first, I think, and then… When the two of you actually got together…”

“I’d say that sounds like every good dream I’ve had for the past three years.” Barry grins. The atmosphere is much less tense, and Iris can see him relaxing and leaning toward Cisco like he’s about to share a secret that Iris isn’t a part of. “Let me tell you, it was a bit of a shock to have Iris no longer be the sole center of my fantasies.”

Cisco smiles before he can stop himself. He’s not hunching his shoulders anymore, Iris notices. He seems actually comfortable for the first time since they got there. She realizes, suddenly, that she’s technically known him for months longer than Barry has. When he was in his coma, Cisco was already starting to be her friend.

“I don’t really know _how_ to be in a relationship with two people,” Cisco sighs. “But it’s not just-you guys aren’t just anybody. You’re… You’re not just my friends, you’re my…” He struggles to find the right words and ultimately fails. Iris remembers what she told Barry. _It’s not someone else. It’s Cisco._ “I don’t know. You’re Barry and Iris.” He turns a little pink, because he’s _not_ going to tell them that he sometimes thinks of them as _his_ Barry. _His_ Iris. That’s a weird thing to do, isn’t it?

“And you’re Cisco,” Iris agrees. She reaches and takes his hand. It’s cooler than Barry’s. More calloused, too, and there are little scars around his fingertips from minor engineering accidents. It feels real. “It feels different, doesn’t it?”

“It really does,” Cisco whispers, shifting forward some more. “We’re not just friends, you know? We’re a part of a team.” _Body, brain, heart._ “I don’t think I could even try to do something like that-like this-with anybody else. You know? I just don’t think I could.”

“Does that mean you want to try?” Barry tries to keep the giddiness and hope out of his voice and repeats _no pressure, no pressure, no pressure_ to himself over and over again in his head. He already screwed this up once. Now that they’re fixing that, he _really_ doesn’t want to mess up the fixing. Absolutely not. Not when they’re so close.

“Yeah.” Cisco looks at them both, something funny scratching at his voice. Iris half wants to wrap him in a blanket and half wants to kiss him breathless. “I think I want to try. That’s what superheroes do, right? That’s what _we_ do.”

Mochi starts winding her way around Barry’s legs as his whole face lights up. He starts saying something about how it _totally_ is what they do, but all Iris can focus on is Cisco, as he scoots his chair a little bit closer to hers. He studies the planes of her face.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, trying not to let the butterflies in his stomach escape out his mouth when he does. “Or is that too fast?”

“I’m married to a speedster,” Iris says with a little laugh, and leans forward in her chair. “Trust me, it’s not too fast.”

Maybe it’s not quite as dramatic as loving somebody in a dozen and a half erased timelines that only someone else can remember because he’s the one who erased them, or kissing someone outside of one of the biggest and fanciest mansions on the East Coast at a fancy party you got all dressed up for. Maybe it’s not quite as romantic as it could have been.

But in Iris’s opinion, it’s a damn fine first kiss all the same.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm danteramon on tumblr.


End file.
